What would be the reason to setting the screws to north and south. I have never heard of that before. I would assume you would have to do a trial and error on the length of the screws to get that to work?

Concerning setting the screws. I'm not sure about Iver Johnson, but other makers of early double barrels called this having the screws "in time." Remington and Parker, as well as others, would always have all the screw slots on the gun lined up lengthwise. Not sure if there was any purpose, but you can always tell if one of those guns has been apart by someone not expert in double guns. They will have the screws out of time, and won't even realize they did anything wrong. Whenever I work on one of these old guns I try to figure out which screws belong in which holes, and put them back in time.

Iver Johson where manufactured in Fitchburg, MASS. from 1883-1984, than they moved to Jacksonville, AZ...The company was sold in 1987 to American Military arms corporation which closed its doors in 1993.

I have been to Moore MT many times. When I used to live in Great Falls and Later Lewistown, I hunted there on a ranch owned by Pete Nelson. I've taken some really big white tails out of there. Doe tags were issued in bunches of 4 and 5 back in the late 70s.

Very nice gun; a work of art. The screws, when oriented in the same direction are refered to as "clocked" Lots of famous gun makers did this. It has no practical purpose other than to say very loudly "I am a master craftsman. I know how to do fine work and do so, even when it doesn't count" Only the very best bothered with it and it was a point of separation between the great gun makers and the "also rans"